January 8 Tuesday – At 169 rue de l’Université in Paris, Sam wrote to H.H. Rogers about being frustrated by Franklin Whitmore not sending monthly itemized accounts as requested, and not saying a word “until his exchequer has run dry.” He’d just received Whitmore’s letter through Bainbridge Colby, with an accounting covering nine months of Hartford expenses. Sam noted he’d just written Whitmore and advised him that the current royalty check from the American Publishing Co. on his old books would have to last several months. Would Rogers turn that check over to Whitmore? The Hartford house was a continuing concern, to the point where he’d lost a day’s work over it:

We have offered to rent our house to a friend. I guess he will not take it, for he won’t like the expense of living in it. But we shall try again. Apparently it costs $200 a month to support it untenanted, even without counting the taxes. Part of the money spent by Whitmore in the reported 9 months went to my brother — $50 a month; $40 a month to Whitmore; $70 a month to the gardener and his wife. Insurance $300 a year, I think.

I have proposed to Whitmore to reduce himself to $20 a month. If we can rent, or sell, or burn the house, it will rid us of the other wages and the taxes.

Sam expected to finish JA by the middle of February and the revisions by Mar. 1, though he wasn’t certain and might add a large appendix, which would delay things. When the MS was ready for the printers he would “carry it over and make arrangements” for its publication [MTHHR 115-6].

Sam’s letter to Franklin G. Whitmore announced he was “going to cut expenses down to the bone” in order to pay the Webster & Co. creditors: he wanted repairs to the house limited to $15 a month, “even if the roof falls in.” Orion would have to continue getting $50 a month again as he had nothing else to live on, “that can’t be helped.” He asked Whitmore to continue on at $20 a month.

You have suspended those pensions indefinitely, haven’t you? — Mrs. Whats-her-name, down in Alabama, & the Women’s Home Work. I’ll never start another one.

Another check is now due from Am. Pub. Co on my old books. It should pay the Hartford expenses several months.

We’ve got to rent that house, or sell it or burn it. [MTP].

The Bachellor & Johnson Syndicate wrote to Sam offering $1,000 for a short story of 5,000 words or more [Jan. 21 to Rogers]. Note: Addison Irving Bacheller started the first American newspaper syndicate. For some reason the spelling of the company’s name was “Bachellor”.

H.H. Rogers wrote to Sam, letter not extant but mentioned in Jan. 21 to Rogers.